Nike UK has come under scrutiny from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after commissioning English soccer players Wayne Rooney and Jack Wilshere to promote its brand in their personal tweets. After receiving complaints and investigating the posts in question, the ASA deemed that the tweets weren’t “obviously identifiable” as advertisements. Nike has since had this particular Twitter campaign banned.

You can see one of the offending tweets pictured below, which was posted by Rooney who currently has a following of 4.37 million users.

As you might have noticed, and as Nike pointed out to the ASA, the company’s tagline and link to the website are clearly displayed. Still, the advertising watchdog has stated without a clear indication, “for example [a] #ad,” the tweets could not be considered as a clearly indicated marketing campaign.

The Nike Twitter ad isn’t the first the ASA has had to investigate for lack of transparency. In March, two users complained about Manchester United soccer player Rio Ferdinand and reality TV star Katie Price’s tweets, saying they were misleadingly pushing Snickers bars. However, the chocolate company was saved from the ban hammer as Price and Ferdinand used the hashtag “spon” (short for sponsorship) and @snickersUk in their posts. Clearly indicating they were endorsed by Snickers.

The American Federal Trade Commission has similar regulations in place, which require tweets to have an “ad” or “paid” hashtag to clearly indicate what is a paid endorsement and what is not. These regulations help protect consumers from being misled by personal accounts they would otherwise assume to trust.